Quo Vadis Turkey?

straightforward as it may appear, and an examination of the likely consequences of the referendum on only one issue — the question of Turkey’s acceptance to EU membership — would show why. What complicates matters is the fact that there are four different currents at play here, currents which at times run at cross purpose with each other:

1. For the EU, which pushed for the referendum, greater democratization in Turkey has meant limiting the ability of the military and courts to thwart the will of the people. The fact that the military and the courts, for the last eighty years, have been a bulwark against the spread of Islamic tendencies in Turkey has often been over-looked by well-meaning Europeans (and Americans).

What has not helped is the fact that the Turkish military, as militaries often are, has been rather heavy handed at times when it came to dealing with Islamists, Kurds, and others who challenged the Kemalite approach.

We may speculate that because the EU-supported referendum has passed, Turkey’s chances of being accepted to the EU have increased.

2. The question, though, is whether Erdogan and his party will use the new limits imposed on the military and courts to introduce more restrictive Islamic laws and strictures into Turkey’s life — arousing the ire of women, gays, non-Muslims, and, more generally, some of the human rights activists who used to complain about the mistreatment of Islamists, but may now find reasons to complain about the mistreatment of other groups.

Thus, if Erdogan and the AKP use the new freedom of maneuver they have gained to introduce restrictive Islamic laws, this would make it more difficult for Turkey to be accepted to the EU.

3. Turkey has always struggled with three different national identities, or vocations: the Western, the Islamic, and the Turkic.

The pro-western approach. The Kemalites, in control of Turkey for eighty years since 1923, have emphasized Turkey’s affiliation with the West. Central to the Kemalite reforms was the belief that Turkish society would have to Westernize itself both politically and culturally in order to modernize. The sweeping domestic reforms, which were followed after the Second World War by membership in NATO and, later, the application of membership in the EU, are the central pillars of this approach.

The Islamist approach. The Islamists argue that Turkey, a Muslim-majority country, should seek to play a leading role in Muslim and Middle Eastern affairs. The Palestinian issue has